Liberty Global moves ahead with Squeeze Out ahead of Telenet delisting

Liberty Global is to reopen its offer for all remaining shares in Belgium’s Telenet as a squeeze-out after its €21 a share offer secured acceptances that gave it 96.26% of the total share capital of the company.

Liberty Global received accept4ances for 3,164,944 Telenet shares¹ during the mandatory reopening period, which ended on 13 September 2023. These acceptances, together with the Telenet shares already held by the Offeror and Telenet represent 96.26% of the total shares issued by Telenet.

Payment of the offer price for the tendered shares (€21.00 per share after deduction of the €1.00 gross dividend approved by Telenet’s ordinary general meeting of 26 April 2023 and paid on 5 May 2023) will take place on the payment date, 21 September.

The Simplified Squeeze-Out will open at 9:00am CET on 22 September 2023 and will close at 4:00pm CET on 13 October 2023.

The move means that Telenet will be delisted from the Euronext Brussels exchange on October 13.

Speaking about Telenet and Liberty Global’s decision to take the Belgian operator private on Goldman Sachs’ European Communacopia virtual conference recently, Liberty Global CEO Mike Frees said that the market had “some real interesting infrastructure elements and some risk – it’s a mature market. I understand why some would exit [but] the core business is strong”.

He said taking Telenet private would give the company flexibility.